Pretty, Polished Garden in Illinois

Homes along a particular historic road in Peoria Heights, Illinois, command breathtaking views of the Illinois River valley, but from the windows of Mary Ann and Denne Knell’s handsome Georgian, the view across the garden to the vista beyond needed some improvement.

The Knells had lived in their home for 20 years when they asked Douglas Hoerr, a landscape architect in Chicago, to take a look at their property. The couple knew they wanted a more distinctive landscape, plus a pool in the back. “They were open to change,” Hoerr says, “so I said, ‘Let’s just brainstorm.’ ”

The house had beautiful lines, but the existing landscaping didn’t take advantage of them. Hoerr’s goals were to create a garden with strong bones that would look beautiful even in Peoria’s snowy winters, and to extend the stately architecture of the house out into the landscape.

Existing foundation plantings did not do justice to the style of the house or enhance the views from inside, landscape architect Douglas Hoerr says.

Hoerr fashioned a grand new entrance in keeping with the style of the house and the splendor of the view. By eliminating a driveway that ran all the way through the property to the next street, he made room for a formal entrance court, a comfortable new open-air living space, a 30-foot lap pool, and a gracious and useful circle drive by the garage in back.

In the new design, the architecture of the home extends into the landscape.

Out front, “it was a sacred view,” Hoerr says. “I had to treat it like artwork.” He suggested an elegant planting of boxwoods, yews, and dwarf crabapples on either side of a wide approach laid with reclaimed granite street pavers and handsome granite curbs. The texture and gravity of the materials complement the home and give the scene depth; a smooth driveway would have made the house seem closer to the street. “It’s a painterly convention,” Hoerr says.

From the front door, the view across the formal parterre out into the sweeping vista of the Illinois River valley takes one’s breath away.

Space at the back and partly along one side of the house, which lacked shade and was seldom used, became a world unto itself. Hoerr created a sheltered outdoor sitting room with a fireplace, a dining area open to the stars, and a lap pool punctuated at the corners with boxwoods, as neat as the buttons on a double-breasted coat. The geometry is strong and polished, but light and inviting.

“Everything is a little more fanciful in the back,” Hoerr says. “More like a jewel box.”

The seating and dining areas are on the same level but feel like separate rooms.

Three wide, gracefully curved steps and low walls separate the sitting and dining areas from the pool. The change in elevation “makes a big difference in how you experience the space,” Hoerr says. Sinking the pool and the elegant patio around it makes the space appear larger than it really is.

Bluestone pavers with limestone accents connect the porch to the pool area. Crabapple trees, boxwoods, and yews echo the elegant design of the front-yard garden. Short, emphatic curves are repeated throughout the back garden area—in the brick walls between the dining area and pool, around flower beds near the gate, and in the patio’s limestone accents.

Hoerr often starts with snapshots when he works with clients on projects, sketching right on top of the images to show how landscaping can transform the way a property is seen and used. Then his crew spray-paints the outline of a working design on the ground. Plantings can always be adjusted, he says, but the hardscaping has to be just right.

When it all comes together, as it did for the Knells, “it changed their perception of their own house, and brought them a lot of joy,” Hoerr says. “I always love it when it works out that way.”